Malacca, a historical city with abundant Malay Cultural Heritage

According to the head of MelayuOnline.com, Mahyudin Al Mudra, Malacca is a city which owns abundant Malay cultural heritage. Therefore, on a day when the gentle rain trickled down, MelayuOnline.com‘s crews succeeded their journey to Malacca at 1 p.m. It spent about two hours to reach Malacca from Negeri Sembilan.

At 3 p.m., the crews entered Malacca city where so many Chinese buildings stand in a row along the city roads. It feels like a hundred years ago as there are a number of old buildings. However, on the other sides, some modern buildings stand firmly without destroying the other old buildings. Such condition then reminds the crews that in the past, the city was a trading and cultural center. As we know, Malacca Sultanate‘s harbor was the busiest harbor in Asia when it reached its glorious age.

The first destination of the crews was Malacca Museum wherein so many Malay cultural and historical properties are kept well. The museum‘s architecture is a unique one since it combines Malay, Portuguese, Arabian, and Chinese styles together. Malay Material Cultures are kept well on the first floor. There, the crews observed Malay equipments that were used by Malay people in the past such as musical instruments, transportation devices, weapons, marriage equipments, and miniature of Malay cultural houses.

It is true that almost all Malay musical instruments are influenced by Arabian and Portuguese arts. It seems from the collection of the museum where various Malay musical instruments are kept there. Some of them have similarities in shapes with musical instruments from Arab and Portugal. Cultural diffusion on music seems be easily accepted by Malay people since the music is an expression of people‘s mind and their sense of beauty. People from various backgrounds will easily unify through music.

The second floor of the museum is a gallery of Malacca history. In the main room, photos of Malacca sultans from time to time and sultanate‘s properties are displayed. There are another four rooms within. Each room represents the colonialism era of Portugal, Dutch, British Kingdom and Japan. There are some pictures depicting the arrival of colonial countries to Malacca and the fight of Malacca people against the colonialism. Those pictures also describe the prosperity of Malacca Sultanate and deny the argument of Naguib Al Attas that Malay people are lazy.

After two hours observing and taking photographs in the Malacca Museum, the crews continued the journey to Portuguese fortress surrounding St. Paul and Monti Ali Maria hills. The fortress lies not so far from the museum but the crews got no allowance to enter the location. The crews arrived at the fortress at 5.30 p.m. hence the fortress has been closed for the public visits. The crews observed the fortress from the distance in the outside.

The fortress was built in 1511 A.D. after Portugal successfully conquered Malacca area. They forced the local inhabitants to build the fortress such what the pictures in the Malacca Museum describe. They got local inhabitants to lift up many big stones from St. Paul hill to erect the fortress. The fortress was a medium to save Portugal colonial government from the threat of Malacca sultanate.

In 1641 A.D., British Kingdom defeated Portugal and took over the fortress. British Kingdom altered the name of St. Paul into Bendera hill since there was a British Kingdom flag on the top of the hill.

“So, what the advantages of building a fortress after conquering Malacca?” one of the crews asked. Obviously, the mind set of colonial government and local inhabitants about safety is totally different. Safety, according to the colonial government, is geographic and physical safety. Their efforts to exploit surrounding people and natural resources that are available made them feel threatened. Psychologically, the colonial government felt inconvenience hence they built up a giant fortress with hope that they would be safe.

Of course, such condition suffered by the colonial government was totally different from Malacca sultans who have close relationship with their citizens. There were no parts which exploited and were exploited. Both sultans and citizens lived harmoniously with no gap each other. The safety created from such interaction was a result of equality between sultans and citizens. Likewise, the appreciation towards their historical and cultural backgrounds shaped out such harmonious interaction.

Since then after observing and taking some photographs, the crews succeeded the trip to visit Hang Tuah‘s graveyard. The crews arrived at the graveyard at 19.20 p.m. then entered the graveyard immediately. The tomb of Hang Tuah is 15 meters in length and 1,5 meters in wide. After reciting prayer addressed to Hang Tuah, the crews read carefully an epitaph above the Hang Tuah‘s tomb. The crews used the dim light of mobile phones to read the messages about the history of Hang Tuah carved on the tombstone.

Hang Tuah was a brave figure who fought against injustice endlessly and also a noble who loyally served to Malacca sultans. His daily life along with his family is also clearly described on the tombstone. All of these messages on the tombstone aim to encourage the fighting spirit against injustice. Though such description about Hang Tuah may seem too superfluous but it is real. This description will share the positive attitude which aims to educate people by providing exemplary behavior through words.

Ceaselessly, the crews went to Perigi where a Hang Tuah‘s well is located. The surrounding people believe that everyone washing his face with the water from that well will stay young. The head of MelayuOnline.com then suddenly took some water from the well. The other crews thought that Mahyudin would like to prove the surrounding people‘s assumption about the well. Out of the other crews‘ prediction, Mahyudin would have just taken the water for ablution as he wanted to practice shalat.

In Perigi, some placards telling the history of Hang Tuah can be found in every corner. Those placards depict the childhood of Hang Tuah who was practicing pencak silat (Indonesian self defense) and reciting Koran. Not only describe the childhood of Hang Tuah, some other placards picture the chronology of Hang Tuah becoming Malacca Sultanate‘s war commander.

In Perigi, pencak silat tradition is kept well. Most of youth in Perigi practice Pencak silat in front of a Malay traditional house. They practice out pencak silat followed by the Malay traditional music performance.

The crews visited Kampung Duyong Mosque that is located in Central Malacca. The crews practiced isya prayer for a moment before going to the hotel in Johor. Kampung Duyong Mosque was built in the 18^th century with beautiful decorations in every corner of the building. Though the mosque has been refurbished for several times, there are no significant changes on its architecture that keeps typically traditional Malay architecture.

The situation was very quiet at 1 a.m. Flashing on the mind of the crews about the glory of Malacca Sultanate hundred years ago. The crews promise will do much more things to establish the glory of Malay civilization in the future.

On that night, the crews succeeded the journey to Johor, on the border of Malaysia and Singapore. To be continued.

(NI/ter/04/07-08)

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